Tom Hoffarth on the media: Was it TMZ (too much zeal) in getting Sterling story out there?

While action against Clippers owner Donald Sterling was swift and strong after TMZ released audio of a racist rant, there have been many opportunities to call him out on his indiscretions in past years that have come and gone. (File photo by Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press)

Tom Hoffarth on sports media

Donald T. Sterling just became the latest Exhibit X-clamation point in how today’s reverberating media — social, unsocial or just plain psychotic — can bring down a suffocating avalanche of reaction to any kind of situation, planned or otherwise.

Even if that same well-documented mountainous trash-heap of information had been majestically decomposing for years without anyone able to budge it by any other mean-spirited means.

Please, the so-called plod-along mainstream, “old school” media has done stories time and time again about Sterling’s indiscretions for years of his Clippers ownership, for things far more repulsive and inhumane than what came out last weekend. Just as a small example, here’s the lead to a column I had back in August of 2006, for crying out loud (which I believe I was doing at the time):

“Why has the outrage around here been so tempered toward Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling, who has once again staggered across that fine line that separates humanitarianism from humiliation?

“Do we have to drag everyone through his raunchy legal resume again? Two years ago, it was a lawsuit against his $500-a-night sex ‘freak’ (his words) that came to light when he provided pages of graphic deposition for all to read, right?

“Last year, wasn’t he ordered to pay more than $5 mil to the Housing Rights Center in a case in which he was accused of trying to drive out non-Korean tenants, particularly blacks and Latinos, at some of the apartments he owns in Koreatown? Didn’t he say then that ‘Hispanics smoke, drink and just hang around ... (and) black tenants smell and attract vermin’?

“So a couple of days ago, when the U.S. Department of Justice announced it has sued The Donald, his wife, his family trust (but not his hooker gal) again for housing discrimination, claiming he refused to rent apartments to blacks, Latinos and families with children, were any of us terribly surprised?

“More important, why haven’t any of the Clippers’ high-profile players — say, Elton Brand, Sam Cassell, Shaun Livingston and Corey Maggette, just to name a few who happen to be wealthy L.A. residents, thanks to Sterling’s money — been man enough to voice an opinion about whether their boss should be held accountable for all this garbage?”

This was also two years before general manager Elgin Baylor was fired, leading him to sue Sterling for employment age discrimination as well as harassment and having to work in a hostile workplace. The lawsuit was rejected by an L.A. jury in 2011.

What gives this time?

Maybe there came a turning point when the traditional media just kind of gave up on shining the light on Sterling because it couldn’t generate any public or corporate reaction. It certainly didn’t generate anything near the wave of response that came crashing down last weekend when audio handed over to TMZ and Deadspin — whether it was recorded legally or not, whether or not a third party was financially compensated for it — turned the dumpster over on Sterling’s life forever.

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We’re assuming those at these new-age journalism factories knew enough to protect themselves from legal ramifications before they pushed all this sewage out on the street. In truth, that seems to matter the most to them. The ramifications of their news-gathering actions and ethical conduct in the process are secondary to the reaction they get from the masses.

Questions are now posed as to whether mainstream media outlets would have sat on this evidence longer, investigating the motives of the people who provided the tape, and given Sterling more of a chance to respond before the audio was transcribed and released.

Not that Sterling could have done much to discredit what was said. But if you’re going to preach a fair-and-balanced philosophy, you have to cover all the bases before just throwing raw meat to a group of highly evolutionary pseudo-reporters/pushers who’ve done a marvelous job optimizing their opposable thumbs for rapid texting and tweeting.

Fire, ready, aim. Sorry, Mr. Sterling, but you’re our latest collateral damage. That’s just how the game is played.

Dallas Mavericks owner and media savvy Mark Cuban knows enough about how new journalism works to see this as a “slippery slope” for anyone who comes under any kind of public attack from here on. For all the times Cuban’s opinions were answered during the David Stern regime with another hefty fine, maybe new NBA commissioner Adam Silver will treat him as more as a voice of reason.

Years from now, this will probably go down as another of those milestone moments that university communications students (perhaps, also considering a journalism degree) will be discussing in their group Skype study hall sessions. The context for all this goes back to how TMZ made itself a player some five years ago with sparking the first reports of the Tiger Woods philandering story. That generated enough momentum to give the organization reason to expand to a TMZ Sports bureau, for all our benefit and for generations to come.

If the Woods story was one where the mainstream media followed the TMZ lead, it’s distressing how this sordid Sterling saga never got the same kind traction until TMZ tore it open and let the public carve it up.

This happened because enough people in the past weren’t able to vent properly with the proper straight-edged technology they have now?

Or was it more like another hot, dry Southern California afternoon, where the Santa Ana winds blew strong and ignited the kindle before our eyes, ears and nose — often with the brain following last?

“Donald Sterling Racism: Why have the national media snoozed until now?” is the headline on a FoxNews.com column from longtime media critic and observer Howard Kurtz.

In it, he tries to sort out how this became a story now instead of years ago by writing: “What does this tell us about the media? Lawsuits are dry; secret tapes are hot, especially when there’s an alleged mistress and sports celebrities involved and a whole subplot about deception and revenge. That rendered the Sterling saga a made-for-television story.”

Made for 24/7 TV, the belching Internet, the conciseness of Twitter and even the photogenic Instagram — one of the very things about which Sterling was also outraged in his repugnant recorded rant.

Sterling should realize he can take to the same medium and offer a personal response without the filter of the mainstream media he has tried to seduce and win over in recent years. Or, he can shut down all his devices and stay under the radar.

Then again, this really isn’t a black-and-white issue, either.

RECORD, PAUSE, DELETE

Gauging the media’s high- and low-level marks of the week, and what’s ahead:

MAGIC CONNECTION I

Add the Dodgers’ 10,000th victory in franchise history this week to the annual Jackie Robinson Day celebration and the first home game of the season on the list of things most viewers in Southern California could not see as the SportsNet L.A. distribution story drags into its fourth calendar month of 2014. One of the more intriguing subplots to the Clippers-Donald Sterling story is the potential for the Dodgers’ Guggenheim group, led by an unnerved Magic Johnson, making a pitch to buy the team, and with it consideration of how Clippers games could fill the fall and winter months programming on the team’s SportsNet L.A. channel. The Clippers’ current exclusive deal with Prime Ticket/Fox Sports ends after the 2016 season, according to sources. It had split games previously with Prime and KTLA-Channel 5 up until 2010. Nielsen overnight ratings show the Clippers had a 2.13 household rating for Tuesday’s Game 5 coverage at Staples Center, a 70-percent jump over the season average. TNT reported its ratings for the same game at 3.7, the most on any cable channel during these playoffs so far, even more astounding since it had a late start on the East Coast.

MAGIC CONNECTION II

The WNBA Sparks, who start their regular season in two weeks, have replaced Larry Burnett on play-by-play for the TWC SportsNet games, but decided to wait until late this week to let him know. The franchise, now controlled by Johnson and his Guggenheim partners, employed Burnett for the past 16 seasons — he outlasted more players, GMs and owners than anyone connected to the Sparks. Burnett and analyst Tracy Warren, who did 25 of the 34 games on TWC SportsNet last year, are still listed as employed on the team’s website. “It’s extremely disappointing,” Burnett said Thursday. “Every year had been a one-year contract, and often settled very close to the start of the season, so I wasn’t expecting anything different, I had my summer schedule clear, but then my agent called to tell me — I didn’t even get a call or heads-up from anyone on the team. You would like to think loyalty means something. So now I’m available for whatever opportunity comes next. For 16 seasons, I had a summer job that I truly loved and enjoyed. How many people can say that? I am sad that it is ending, but I wish the Sparks the very best.” A Sparks spokesperson said an announcement about the new broadcast team is expected next week.

SECOND TIME AROUND The Kings and Ducks know the drill of second-round Stanley Cup playoff coverage: No more local broadcasts and you wait to see if NBC or NBCSN can make things enjoyable from here on out. Expect to see Bob Miller and Jim Fox head up postgame coverage from the Kings’ end of things, with John Ahlers and Brian Heyward on the Ducks’ side. Problem is for Saturday’s Game 1 at 5 p.m. (NBCSN, with John Forslund and Joe Micheletti), FSW is locked into the Angels-Rangers game from 6 p.m. until likely past 10 p.m. Prime Ticket, the Ducks’ home channel, has more flexabilty.

THE ROSE-COLORED FASHION POLICE

Part of NBC’s coverage of the 140th Kentucky Derby (Saturday, Channel 4, 3:25 p.m.) is turning to 2014 Winter Olympic darlings Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir to horse around on the fashion end of things. “There are so few sporting events that are actual cultural events that people rally around the television to watch, the Olympic Games being one of them, the Kentucky Derby is another that has this whole cultural sidestep and sideshow to the actual big race,” Weir said on a conference call earlier this week. “I think that’s what is so amazing about the Olympics and the Kentucky Derby as an example that there is drinking and partying and fashion and celebrity and all of these things that go into it. It’s not just an NHL or NFL or NBA game that happens almost every night and there’s some tall man shooting a ball in a basket almost every night on my television. These are actual cultural events and that’s what makes the fashion side of things so exciting. And of course there’s the hats, the very rich southern charm that comes through the Kentucky Derby, which makes it really unique. You don’t really think of Kentucky and fashion together. So it’s their shining moment for the year with fashion.” There’s a comment sure to generate some Kentuckian backlash. “I get nasty e-mails about everything I say, so I don’t take anything very seriously,” Weir added. “There could be a sea of 10 million e-mails and I wouldn’t care. As long as I can do my job and do it well, that’s all I do care about.” NBCSN starts with the “Raw Show” at 2 p.m. Friday, after the Kentucky Oaks race at noon. The Derby pre-race starts on NBCSN at 9 a.m. Saturday and then at 1 p.m. on KNBC-Channel 4.